


What Good is the Sky

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Heavy Angst, Inspired by Music, Lord!Tony, M/M, Man of La Mancha - Freeform, Men Crying, Unhappy Ending, Whore!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 20:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13643583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: You have shown me the skyBut What good is the skyTo a creature that will never do better than crawl?





	What Good is the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phantomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomas/gifts).



> For the WinterIron Discord Key Challege:
> 
> Windmills - real or metaphorical - with a side serving of sobbing James Barnes.
> 
> Windmills not actually present; story loosely based on the song Aldonza from Man of La Mancha, about the kitchen whore that Don Quixote falls in love with and believes is a pure, gently-born woman.

Maybe it was the park.

Bucky didn’t meet the man, like he met so many of them, on his back in a cheap bed with a scratchy sheet and thin blanket. He didn’t meet him, reeking of sweat and come and dirt. Didn’t take a few coins and drop to his knees.

Bucky didn’t have a lot of respect for men. They came into the slatterly house, dropped their coins on the table. Most of them never looked him in the eye.

Quite frankly, the ones who did were worse, the ones that asked for him by name, that came back, time and time again. Rumlow, for instance, who acted like he _owned_ Bucky. He didn’t. Bucky wasn’t owned by anyone. He was just poor, hungry, and missing an arm after the war. Queen and country were eager enough for his services while he was still a whole man, but turned him loose in a country with too many veterans and not enough jobs, to fend for himself. He could do what he did as a three-legged table, the joke went. He didn’t need both hands to suck a cock and keep himself balanced against the wall.

It had to be the park.

Bucky liked the park, the little corner where he went sometimes. A flat, green pond and fat ducks that cluttered around him, quacking for food. He rarely had any -- even the stalest bread would still keep him fed -- but that didn’t seem to stop them. It was one of those things. Sitting with the ducks, Bucky could imagine, just for a little while, that he had friends.

Sitting in the park, staring at his collection of ducks that were milling around the bench, thinking about nothing in particular, when someone sat down next to him.

“Mind if I join you?”

Bucky managed to raise his chin enough to glance at the man. He certainly didn’t mean to get caught by the blinding good looks and the wealthy cut of his coat, the fine fabric, the neat way his beard was trimmed. He stared at the man’s mouth, lush and full and giving him a crooked, charming smile and then did something he hadn’t done in years.

Blushed.

“Go on, then,” he said, nodding.

The man pulled a roll, soft and fresh and still steaming, from a bag and started to tear it into little pieces. Bucky could smell the butter melting off it and his stomach rumbled. Fortunately, the noise was covered by the crowd of absolute traitorous ducks, who hurried over, honking and quacking and flapping their wings, to get their share.

“Here, want to help?” The man offered Bucky the bag of rolls. “It’s all right. The baker’s wife, she always wants to give me more buns than I know what to do with.”

 _Must be nice_ , Bucky thought, but he took a roll, and when it appeared the man wouldn’t notice, another one.

One for the ducks, one for his pocket.

“Am I allowed to introduce myself? I keep being told that I’m too forward, but I don’t see your chaperone,” the man said.

Bucky laughed, dark and bitter. When had he ever needed a chaperone. He wasn’t the son of a minor lord, even before the war. He was just… “I’m--” he hesitated, then, “--James, my lord. And I don’t have a chaperone.”

“James. It’s an honor,” the man said. “I’m Tony Stark.”

Bucky stared. Tony Stark. “Your Grace?” Tony Stark, Duke of York. Bucky was an inch from throwing himself face-first on the duck beshitted grass.

“Just Tony, please. I get enough of that at the balls and soirees. I’ve been out of the country too long, my Uncle Obie says. Don’t know how to behave, living among the savages. He says that like only England can produce civilized people, but that’s just nonsense. But you shouldn’t let me ramble on. I’ll talk your ear off about India and their scientific advancements and never let you get a word in edgewise. Very boring for most people.”

Someone was going to throw him in the darkest prison cell they could find for addressing the Duke of York familiarly.

On the other hand, the prison might be less occupied by whoremongers.

“If you want,” he eyed Duke Stark cautiously, then, “Tony.”

“Good man, there,” Duke Stark said, laughing. “As kind-hearted to my ridiculous complaints as you are handsome.”

“Your complaint about not knowin’ how to behave, Tony? I think I can handle that burden.”

The duke laughed again, clapped Bucky on the knee. His hand didn’t linger, there wasn’t the suggestion of more than just casual affection. The warmth left behind from his skin felt like an actual brand against Bucky’s leg.

Tony talked, Bucky listened. Asked a few questions. Made a few sarcastic observations. Talked to a person, like he was a person. Like he was a real human man, with feelings and ambitions and favorite colors and a home. Not like he was a hole for fucking, a mouth for defiling.

When Tony left, and Bucky walked back toward the slattery, he ate the bun. It was long since cold, but the butter was sweet and salty and Bucky licked it off his fingers.

He’d spent the best afternoon in the last few years, just sitting on a bench. Talking. To a man who would never touch him. Never hurt him or treat him with contempt. So long as he never knew that James Barnes, formerly of her majesty’s army, was just Bucky the slut now.

Bucky pushed past the other whores in the building, fleeing to his thin pallet and his tatty blanket.

Threw himself on the mattress, buried his head under the old pillow, flat from years of use barely cradling his face as the johns pressed him into it, not caring if he could breathe.

And sobbed. Cried until he couldn’t see. Until his chest ached and his lips were chapped and his mouth was dry. Until his eyes burned and his nose was stuffed shut. Of all the cruel bastards who battered and badgered him, Tony Stark was the cruelest of all, the one who treated him with simple kindness. He didn’t know how to deal with a man who _saw him_.

All he could do, Bucky supposed, was make sure Tony Stark _never_ saw him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I blame icarus from the WinterIron discord, with a side order of blaming 27dragons who suggested the Man from La Mancha inspiration. 
> 
> This story does not have a happy ending. If people ask for more of this, I'm going to point you in the direction of the play, which is a TRAGEDY and say "is that really what you want?"


End file.
